


Scientific Method

by kuduslut (hawkeward)



Category: Guild Wars 2
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Teacher/Student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:06:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1395742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeward/pseuds/kuduslut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snaff’s apprentice has a theory, and needs his help to test it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scientific Method

The thing Snaff loved most about science was its eternal capacity to surprise him. The ever-turning process of question, hypothesis, testing, and analysis was a staid companion, but each step contained its own spark of potential to twist away in ways equally delightful and dangerous. Hypotheses, in particular, excited him--bending the mind to an unknown and forming ideas out of nothingness, each one shining with possibility, then testing them and either being proven correct or beginning the fascinating process again.

He had always tried to instill the same excitement in his students. The results were occasionally... unexpected.

It was Maguuma's dry season, and they were working late--Zojja with her head and torso buried in the shell of one of the golems that formed the foundation of their next project, he himself reviewing the day's notes. The heat was oppressive, unusual even for the height of the season. It formed a suffocating blanket that left him grudgingly opening his collar and Zojja, in her youthful exuberance, stripped to the waist.

And not only stripped to the waist, but occasionally pausing to stretch in such a way as to very deliberately show off the lines of her body, the curve of her ears framed between her upreached arms.

It was hardly unusual for apprentices to develop romantic or sexual attractions to their teachers. Pursuit of such a liaison was of course strictly forbidden on all manner of ethical grounds. Relationships of that kind were meant to be balanced, like elegant equations--differences in position or authority were disruptive and undesirable. Biology had its power, but asura were ruled by the mind and the Eternal Alchemy.

Zojja was subtle, but Snaff knew the signs well enough to recognize that she admired him in a different way than a student admired a master, or than a young asura at the start of her career might admire a distinguished elder at the height of his. The way her eyes lingered on him only to dart away when he met them, her too-long blush when he praised her work--he was no fool.

Of course, Snaff himself was also partly to blame. He should have discouraged it from the start, but it was flattering that a young female so flush with potential would take that kind of notice of him. And he couldn't deny that Zojja had matured into a very fine example of an asura, and a genius in her own right--his crowning achievement, after his failure with Kudu. Were he a few decades younger, he'd be all but begging her for a collaboration. Even as it was...

No, as it was, he was her teacher, and she was his student. No matter what feelings or desires she might stir in him.

... All right,  _did_  stir in him. On a fairly regular basis.

Zojja's frustrated muttering and banging had gone on for several hours, and he was about to suggest they halt for the night when she let out an echoing whoop of joy and emerged. "Fixed it!" she crowed. "No thanks to you and those Skritt scratches you call schematics.  _And_  I improved the efficiency profile by thirty percent while I was in there."

Her skin was flushed and dewed with sweat, a smudge of grease on her cheek, face aglow with success as she grinned at him. "It's hotter than a destroyer nest in here," she proclaimed, wiping her forehead on the back of her wrist. "I'll get us some water."

She bounded away without waiting for a response, all energy, and returned from the purifier with two cups. One she handed to him, and he drank gratefully. It had grown difficult to breathe. The heat, most likely--water would help.

She perched on the edge of his desk, close enough to him that her foot casually brushed his knee. A rush of intoxicating heat that had little to do with the night's ambient temperature surged in him at the contact.

"Master Snaff?" she asked, gray eyes darting to meet his and then just as quickly away. "Will you help me test a hypothesis?" The question was casual, but she turned her half-full cup around and around in her hands in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture.

"Always," he replied, puzzled. Zojja rarely, if ever, asked for help outright. A common failing among asura, particularly students as bright as she. "What do you need me to do?"

She set the cup down. "Am I attractive?"

He tensed involuntarily. "Of course you are attractive," he replied, choosing his words carefully. "You're a lovely and intelligent female by any standard. I have no doubt that you'll one day perform feats of genius far beyond anything I have done. But what does that--"

"I mean, are you attracted to me?"

"My dear," he said, "You are an exemplary apprentice. I could not ask for finer, and I am truly--"

"Snaff," she interrupted again, quietly but firmly. "Do you want me the way I want you?"

She sat looking at him sidelong, her eyes half-lidded, the lamplight gilding the lines of her face and chest. She was beautiful, and brilliant, and yes, against all his better judgement, he wanted her. Wanted to touch her body as a lover, to see her genius as a partner, to know to what dizzying heights they could drive each other.

He said nothing.

She watched him for a moment, then abruptly slid off the desk to stand a few paces from where he sat. "It's too hot," she grumbled. "I can't think like this."

He realized her intent a heartbeat before she reached for her clothing. She was already half-undressed, her tunic discarded in the face of the heat; now she freed the belt that held her trousers and let them fall to the floor. His breath caught in his throat as she hooked her thumbs into her underclothes and shimmied efficiently out of them, leaving herself completely nude. Her body drew his eyes like a magnet--smooth skin drawn over supple muscle, pale and lightly freckled at shoulders, forearms, and thighs, hairless save for the peachy fuzz where her legs met.

He managed to keep his face impassive, but certain other parts of his anatomy stood up and paid attention. Quite erectly, as it were.

" _I_  think," she said, the set of her jaw mulish in its stubbornness, "that you  _do_  want me. And that is the hypothesis I want to test." She moved toward him, reaching for the closures of his clothing. Her hands trembled slightly as she began to undo them, giving the lie to the confidence of her statement.

"Zojja," he said warningly as she opened his tunic. He was impossibly tense, every one of his muscles nearly vibrating--with apprehension or anticipation, he didn't want to think about which.

"Logically," she continued, pushing the fabric smoothly down off his shoulders, fingertips tracing maddeningly over his skin, "If you are uninterested in me, mutual nudity should not be a problem."

His next protest was cut off by a hard swallow as she trailed her hands down his bared chest toward his belt. She couldn't possibly miss his state of arousal, not even marginally concealed as it was beneath his loose trousers. The prospect thrilled him even as it terrified him.

But instead of addressing the incriminating anatomy directly, she moved her hands to his thighs and squeezed them gently. "My preliminary observations are certainly... promising," she said lightly, a slight downward glance making it excruciatingly clear to what she referred. "But this isn't the Inquest--I do need the permission of my subject in order to continue the experiment."

He knew he should push her away. Push her away and never speak of this again, never  _think_  of it again, and thereby maybe, just  _maybe,_  avoid making an utter fool of himself.

"Please, Snaff," she whispered. "Let me?"

That was too much.  _She_  was too much. She overwhelmed his senses, his thoughts, his reason. It was more than he could be expected to resist--more than he  _wanted_  to resist. Resistance, in fact, was the last thing he wanted. All he wanted was her.

"All right," he heard his voice rasp. "All right."

Her face lit with mingled relief and delight. She dropped nimbly to kneel on the floor, dragging impatiently at his trousers and undergarment. He lifted his hips to allow them to slide down and pool around his ankles, baring his erect phallus to the night air.

She pulled back and simply observed him for a long moment, her gaze traveling over his body before visibly lingering on the evidence of his desire for her. He might have felt vulnerable, self-conscious--his gray hair was damp with sweat, his clothing half-off and in rumpled disarray, his skin and body far from her own youthful flawlessness--save for the hunger evident in her parted lips and widened eyes. She looked at him the way she looked at a challenge set before her, like she would not rest until she knew his every molecule intimately, like he was the only thing in her world.

It was magnificent.

She grinned and leaned forward to press a coy kiss to the side of his shaft, startling a gasp from him. Her lips slid slowly up its length, her eyes locked boldly on his the entire way. When she reached the head, her tongue darted out briefly, teasing the very tip and leaving him twitching with need.

She climbed into his lap, spreading her legs to straddle his thighs. Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she arched against him, the slick folds of her labia sliding along the length of his member as she rocked herself up and down. Her eyes remained locked on his, her face flushed, her lips slightly parted in concentration.

He couldn't stop himself from touching her. He reached up and cupped her ears, rolling and massaging them between thumbs and forefingers, dragging his claws lightly over the base where they met her scalp. Her response was gratifying--an inarticulate almost-whine from low in her throat as her eyes fluttered shut and she arched against him, trapping his member between their bellies and wrenching a gasp from his throat.

"Show me how you want me," she said, eyes half-lidded and glittering dark with desire.

He guided her into position without hesitation, abandoning his final grip on the thought that this was a terrible idea, possibly the worst he had ever had. It no longer mattered--he was lost long before he nudged her legs open wider, long before he gripped his shaft and lined it up with the slick heat of her vulva. Perhaps he had been lost since the moment this brilliant spitfire of a synergeticist, barely more than a progeny at the time, blazed her way into his life.

He eased her down at a tortuously slow pace, halting every time he heard her breath catch and resuming only when it regained its more regular, if accelerated, rhythm. She was exquisitely tight around him, and hot--hotter than the jungle night, hotter than the center of Mount Maelstrom. He rocked his hips in tiny, excruciatingly patient motions, letting her take the last of him in bit by bit until she was fully seated, skin-to-skin, straddling his hips.

She laughed breathlessly, hands clamped on his shoulders, claws digging into the muscles of his back. "Experimentation thus far... supportive of hypothesis," she murmured in his ear, hot breath ghosting over the sensitive skin.

He was far from the level of coherency needed to respond to that, so he rolled his hips, transforming her laughter into a stuttering moan as he thrust slightly deeper. He stroked his hands down her sides and found her hips again, tracing the tender skin in the crease of the joints with his thumbs, then curling around to palm her buttocks, earning himself another sound of wordless appreciation.

He began to guide her up and down in long, slow strokes, feeling her hands tighten convulsively on his shoulders with every move. She was a quick study, as always, adding her own motions to their rhythm, accelerating their pace. Soon she was grinding down against him as he thrust up to meet her, perfectly in sync, each stroke lighting sparks up and down his spine.

Liquid-hot pleasure was building in his lower belly like a tight-wound spring, and he knew he couldn't hold out for much longer. Zojja was close to climax as well, by his guess--her head tipped back, breath coming in little moans, eyes narrowed to luminous slits and locked on his own. He moved one hand from her hip, relying on her to keep up their rhythm, and worked it down between them to where their bodies joined. When his knuckle rubbed her clitoris, she jerked against him with a breathy exclamation, her eyes squeezing shut.

He continued his ministrations, working in brisk little circles as her movements became more and more erratic. He could see the tension build in her face and shoulders, feel it in her legs clamped around his hips and her claws leaving marks on his back. Finally her head snapped back and she arched like a bow, entire body spasming and clenching around him as she uttered a thin, ragged cry. He rode it out, slowing their pace until her breathing evened and her muscles began to relax.

A renewed grip on her hips and few more hard thrusts had his own orgasm overtaking him, that coil of molten anticipation--wound beyond endurance--unspooling and snapping like a lightning whip. He groaned brokenly, hips jerking, fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs as he emptied into her.

Zojja slumped forward, bringing their bodies flush against each other, her arms draped over his shoulders. It was only natural for him to nestle his face into her neck, murmuring wordlessly against her pulse as he wrapped his arms around her and traced gentle patterns across her back with the tips of his claws.They stayed entangled like that for a time--sweaty, sticky, but so perfectly relaxed--then she slowly eased off of him, giving a hissing little gasp as the movement stimulated too-sensitive flesh. He watched lazily as she retrieved her trousers and used the soft fabric to wipe her thighs reasonably clean, then tossed the cloth to him so he could do the same.

"Well, I'd say my experiment was a total success," she said, stretching languidly as he cleaned himself. She made no move to dress, but kicked together two of the thin pallets laid out for nights when they were too exhausted to stagger from the lab to their sleeping quarters.

"Yes," he replied tiredly, moving to the pallets and stretching out. He remained nude, as well--clothing was too much bother. "I believe we can consider your hypothesis most rigorously tested."

Zojja curled up beside him, one arm thrown over his chest. The night was still warm, but he found her body heat welcome against his sweat-cooled skin. "But Master Snaff...," she murmured against his ear, already on the way to sleep, "Everyone knows you can't consider a theory rigorously tested until it has produced consistently repeatable results."

Snaff grinned and closed his eyes. There was a reason he loved hypotheses.


End file.
